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Fathering The Night

Carrying the baby horizontally across my chest like a football usually calms him, and often puts him to sleep. But not tonight. He’s still crying, cycling through his whole repertoire: the screechy fear cry; the lower, throaty demand cry; the pitiable gasping interspersed with slobbery whimpers.

Each Child

Your ten-year-old locks himself in the bathroom with his best friend. Half an hour later, he comes out with his eyebrows shaved off, looking like a child from Planet X or someone undergoing chemotherapy.

Waiting For Emma

In fact, we’ve always been positive about having another child. We both imagine a daughter: Emma, a real fireball, definite in her opinions and politically precocious. I can even see the birth announcement. It says, “Announcing . . .” in bold type on the cover, then opens up to a color xerox of Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People — that painting of a woman who’s marching over the barricades, one breast bared, with a fearless young kid waving his pistols and a dying old man looking up at her in wonder. I know that sounds odd for a card introducing a newborn, but that’s what I see: woman warrior.

Tattoo Envy

Motorcycle Jim used to go with Katie. That was before his biker lifestyle proved a tough, chalky mix with Katie’s desire for respectability and security. They broke up, and Motorcycle Jim did what a guy named Motorcycle does: loaded his bike, hitched up his jeans, and hit the road.

People Tell Me

May 1994

Perfect Rooms

The language is so much bigger than I am, so much older, more beautiful. How can I hope to tame it, cram it into a style?

Notes To Each Other

We were not brought together through signs and wonders; we did not even particularly love each other. We married on impulse the night of our third date without “hearing a Voice,” and things went rapidly downhill from there.

Dirty Words

A ballerina, a horse trainer, a horny man

The Lurch

He stands naked at the end of his dock. His body isn’t used to the cold anymore, and goose bumps rise on his sagging skin.

Idle Speed

A Prison Journal

I became a crook, endorsing checks made out to the stock brokerage I worked for, putting the funds in my checking account, trading heavily in stock options — always telling myself everyone would be paid off handsomely, and no one would ever know.